David Little: Costly race for some candidates

A candidate running for local political office has dozens of ways to get his or her message out.

The problem is, most of them cost money. Whether it's glossy junk mail, television and radio ads, newspaper ads or slate mailers, it's often expensive — sometimes thousands of dollars.

There are other ways that take effort, but are cheap or free. Get interviewed by the newspaper. Buy a booth at a farmers market or the county fair. Knock on doors. Speak to any service organization that will have you. Don't miss any candidates forum to which you are invited.

Then there's the sample ballot. It's mailed to every voter in the county. Of all the campaigning methods, with the exception of targeted yet expensive mailers, it's the only one guaranteed to reach everybody who can cast a ballot.

But have you noticed not everybody has a candidate statement in the sample ballot? For example, only three of the six people on the ballot for state Senate have one of those 200-word statements. Only nine of the 11 Chico City Council hopefuls are included. Only two of the four Chico Unified School District candidates are included.

Elizabeth Griffin, a sitting school board member, is one of the two CUSD candidates who doesn't have a statement in the sample ballot. And she agonized over the omission.

"I thought people might think you were flaky, or they'd think you don't have the ability to form your thoughts and write out a statement," said Griffin. She talked to people who ignore all of the other campaign noise and base their vote entirely on the candidates' 200-word statements in the sample ballot.

So why didn't Griffin and many others for lesser offices turn one in? It costs money. A lot of money.

"So many people flat-out do not know that you have to pay to have your information put in that voter booklet," said Griffin.

The printing and postage bill for the sample ballots is huge. Charging candidates is one way for the Butte County elections office to recoup some of the costs.

A few hundred bucks is no big deal for Chico City Council candidates, some of whom collect tens of thousands in contributions. But what about an interested citizen who wants to run for the local school board, irrigation district or park board? Most of them don't collect a dime in contributions because they detest that part of politics. They are seeking positions that don't pay a dime, either, making it harder to fork over hundreds for a campaign statement.

If you're running for the CUSD board, for example, you have to write a blank check to the county elections office that you're told could be as much as $1,530. That's the charge if just one candidate decides to pay for a statement. It's $841 if two candidates want statements printed, and so on down to $495 minimum.

Faced with a bill for $1,530 that she didn't have, Griffin turned in a statement and a check. She figured she could "borrow" it from money she had been saving for her daughter's wedding, then find a way to pay it back before the wedding.

But in the end she had buyer's remorse. She decided to withdraw the statement and the check before it went to the printer.

You can't blame her. And I wonder how many people choose not to run because of reasons like that. They have to sift through a huge candidate's workbook, learn a bunch of rules and decide whether to spend money they don't have to get elected to a volunteer position that pays nothing and steals 10 or 20 hours a week from your life.

If you're like me and jaded by the people battling for Congress, Assembly and even City Council— where $1,530 is couch change — then on Tuesday remember the people who run for offices like the Durham Irrigation District, the Chico Area Recreation and Park District, the Butte College District and the CUSD board.

They've put more into this than anybody should expect. Get out and vote for people like them.

David Little is editor of the Enterprise-Record and Oroville Mercury-Register. His column appears each Sunday. Follow him on Twitter, @ER_DavidLittle.